


with the silence broken by a whispered wind

by staubfingers



Category: The Old Guard (Movie 2020)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Andy is still immortal because I said so, Angst, Booker | Sebastien le Livre Needs Therapy, Canon-Typical Violence, Cuddling & Snuggling, Families of Choice, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Platonic Kissing, Platonic Relationships, Post-Canon, Pre-Canon, Sharing a Bed, Suicide Attempt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-22
Updated: 2020-09-22
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:49:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,376
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26596318
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staubfingers/pseuds/staubfingers
Summary: “Nothing you'll do could ever hurt me,” Joe says. Liar, Booker thinks. He wants to beg him to stay, to not leave him, not again, never again. He wants to tell him how much he loves him, and Nicky, and Andy, but he keeps his mouth shut like he always does.
Relationships: Andy | Andromache & Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Joe | Yusuf al-Kaysani & Nicky | Nicolò di Genova, Booker | Sebastien le Livre & Quynh | Noriko
Comments: 27
Kudos: 153





	with the silence broken by a whispered wind

**Author's Note:**

> I saw this movies over two months ago and I'm still obsessed with it?! And especially with Booker aka the exact kind of sad asshole-character I'm always weak for.  
> This is a story of Booker meeting the members of his family (minus Nile, sorry), loving them and failing to cope with it most of the time. He attempts to kill himself and even if it doesn't stick it's not really a happy story, I think. But it doesn't end in tragedy either, promise. Oh, at least Andy is still immortal in this because I refuse to accept that Quynh is finally free just to lose Andy soon after once again.  
> English is (unfortunately) not my mother tongue, so beware, there will be stupid mistakes. Title is from _Devil's Spoke_ by _Laura Marling_

When his eyes land on her for the first time, the woman he saw, heard, _felt_ dying a painful death for nearly two centuries, his first instinct is to run. He remembers all of those stories about her, the told and the unsaid, stories about her wrath, her fury, that came upon anyone who did her wrong. And that's what he did, isn't it? He did her wrong, and not just her, but the people she loves.

The sound of shattering glass makes him jump and it takes him a few seconds to realize that he let go of the just bought bottle of bourbon he held in his hand.

“It's nice to finally meet you, Booker,” Quynh says like she's greeting an old friend. There is a smile on her lips, small but genuine, and Booker feels something inside of him break.

He would have fallen to the floor, or maybe he'd bolted right back down the stairs after all, if it weren't for Quynh's strong arms encircling him, pressing his trembling body to her own. Later he wonders whom she tried to hold together in that moment, him or herself.

-

Sebastian dies in Russia after he made his peace with leaving this sorrowful life and the godforsaken cold behind. Of course this is only the beginning. Over the next few months he'll learn that being hanged is a relatively pleasant way to die, but while he is in this tree for hours, days, _weeks_ he's certain that it's the worst punishment imaginable.

When he's finally able to loosen the rope enough for his head to slip through and his body lands in the snow, he finally realizes what he should have seen ever since he woke up for that first time, alive and yet already dying again. _He is in hell_. He nearly grows mad with the prospect of never being fucking _warm_ again, so mad indeed that he merely wanders aimlessly through the never-ending snow until he breaks down, gets up and does it all over.

“We are here to help you,” they say and Sebastian wants to laugh, but no sound is coming from his numb lips. They look like demons, he thinks. Two men and a woman, faces blurred and yet strangely familiar. He saw them in his dreams, he suddenly remembers, they called out for him and he ran. Now, he tries to run as well, his body fails him once again, though, and he stays right where he is.

“Everything will be alright,” the dark-haired man says and reaches out. His touch is warm upon Sebastian's cheek, so wonderfully warm that he nearly starts to weep right then and there.

They take him to a small house, set him down in front of the fireplace and feed him soup that tastes better than anything he had in years. When he stops shaking they begin to talk. They talk and talk and nothing makes any sense, and Sebastian listens and keeps his mouth shut, not believing a word they say.

He waits until they fell asleep, then he instinctively takes one of their sabres and considers running, but where to? This is probably the last time he'll ever be warm again, he thinks, the last time is body isn't in pain from head to toe, so why not savour it?

It doesn't even hurt when the sabre pierces his skin, so he plunks it deeper and twists until he feels blood on his hands. Everything turns black and for the first time since he was forced to leave his home he is _content_.

He wakes up with blood-stained clothing and not even a scar where the steel cut his skin moments ago. The dark-haired man's face is mere inches from his own, eyes unbelievably sad. Sebastian wants to push him away, to hit him for bringing him back to _this,_ but his hand only takes hold of the man's shirt. 

“I've got you,” the man says and Sebastian finally weeps.

-

Quynh smells like salt-water and it nearly makes him sick. Booker doesn't tell her, though, since she's kind enough to not mention that he reeks of alcohol and sweat and whatever else, either.

“How long... When?” he brings out, voice rough from being silent for too long.

“A few weeks. Didn't you realize that the dreams have stopped?” He did, but he blamed it on the alcohol, on being drunk enough to not even feel the need to get up most days. “It took me a while to find you.” Her lips are so close to his ear that her voice seems to be right in his head. He has always wondered what it would sound like, now it's sticky-sweet, pulling him impossible closer to her.

“Are you real?” This isn't what he wanted to say, but the moment the words left his tongue he realizes how desperately he needs an answer to it, how afraid he is of this being yet another dream.

“I am real,” she assures, lips trailing over his cheek while she speaks, “You're not alone any more. _We_ are not alone.”

-

His last son dies and Sebastian follows him only hours later. Somehow he's certain that this time it will stick, and it only makes the inevitable waking up that much more disappointing.

He tries to stay away, stubbornly refusing to give in, until he's all of the sudden not able to any longer. After packing his few belongings he leaves Paris once again, this time by his own choice.

No matter how many times he insulted and sent them away when they came for him, it never made them stop. One of them always dropped by once in a while or mailed him a letter with the place they're currently staying in. He burned every single of those and tried to tell himself he forgot what they said, but now he's standing in front of a house in the country side on a Greek island and must admit defeat.

It's Nicolo who opens the door and embraces him like they're more than strangers sharing the same curse. He doesn't ask any questions, doesn't even say a word, only pulls him inside.

“My youngest son has died,” Sebastian says when the other two have returned from where-ever they were, “They are all dead now, and I haven't aged a day.” His voice sounds hoarse, maybe it's from all the screaming he did, or maybe he's about to cry. He's too tired to care.

Andromache sits down beside him, takes his hand into hers. “Nothing hurts more than losing a child, but even this pain will subside.”

He never touched her for longer than the split of a second, she always avoided him as much as he avoided her, yet her touch feels familiar. “Do you remember their faces?”

“No,” she says and Sebastian is able to see the same pain in her eyes that sits in every cell of his body, “I don't for a very long time.”

Neither of them pulls their hand away for the rest of the night.

-

Quynh finds an old bottle of rum in one of the cabinets. He hates rum, however it's better than nothing and his hands already began to shake again. They fall into his unmade bed, the sheets full of stains of unknown origin, however she doesn't seem to mind, especially not after passing the bottle a few times back and forth.

There are so many questions Booker wants to ask, _how did you escape, why did you come for me, why aren't you with them, what is your plan, when are you going to leave as well_ , he keeps his mouth shut, though, afraid of what the answers could be.

He falls asleep with his nose pressed into the skin of her neck, breathing her in, thankful the smell of salt-water is gone.

“Don't let go of me, do not let them take me away again,” she pleads.

“Never.” For the first time in a long while it feels like he'll be able to keep a promise.

-

They go to the United States because they think it will help him to accommodate to his new life. He doesn't really care, spends the crossing with puking his guts out and learning a few words in English because he doesn't bear speaking his mother-tongue any longer. To blend in they change their names as well, and he becomes 'Booker' which has started out as a joke and then somehow stuck.

The strangest thing about living with them is Nicky's and Joe's relationship. They never hid that they are lovers, more than that actually, and at first Booker frowned upon it since it felt _inappropriate_. Nicky only laughed when Booker said so, drunk out of his mind and sick from the never-ending reeling of this godforsaken boat. “I don't give a damn, not after everything I've seen,” Nicky had declared and Booker couldn't argue with that.

Still, the uncomfortable feeling in his chest stays, and it takes him a few months until he realizes that it's not the fact that they are both men that irritates him, but how _close_ they are. He has never seen two people who are so utterly devoted to each other, and when he thinks back to his own marriage he sees how unhappy his wife has been, even long before he had returned from a war she was told he died in dishonourably. Even Andy shares a more loving bond with them than Booker could ever hope for, and in the darkest hours of the night he recognizes the uncomfortable feeling in his chest for what it is: he is jealous.

It's humiliating for that he has no right to want their love when even his own wife couldn't give him hers and when he does absolutely nothing to deserve their kindness. At least these thoughts keep him awake and he doesn't dream of the woman who's drowning again and again, and who should be here instead of him.

-

For the next few days, or weeks, Booker stopped counting decades ago, they hardly ever leave the bed. They only drink, and eat tasteless food he orders, and then they drink some more until the world around them spins, and they fall back to sleep. They exchange a few words now and then, but they never _talk_ , and Booker is grateful for it, she probably wouldn't want to hear his pointless apologies anyway.

Whenever Quynh wakes up she shakes, and cries, and bangs her fists against walls of iron that aren't there. He holds her then, not too tight so that she doesn't feel trapped, but so that his warm body shields her from the memories. _“You're not alone.”_ It becomes a mantra, and sometimes he isn't even sure who of them says it.

At some point he decides he needs to take her mind off of things, so he plugs in the TV he bought when he first came to Paris a few months ago and never even turned on. He explains it as good as he can, from movies, over soap operas, to dating-shows and Quynh is entranced. One of these days she laughs about some stupid joke an animated fox tells on the screen. It's a short, nearly inaudible sound, however it's the most beautiful thing Booker has heard in years.

-

“You need to stop drinking.” Nicky says it with so much conviction that Booker nearly snorts with laughter. “I'm serious.”

“Why? Are you afraid my liver will give up? I'm pretty sure I grew a new one a few weeks ago.”

“It messes with your head, Book. You've changed and sometimes I don't even recognize you. When was the last time you were sober?” He looks sad, nearly heart-broken over it, and it makes Booker irrationally angry. How does Nicky, who had only ever gotten what he wanted, who never had been alone since all he ever needed, all he ever loved, was always by his side, how does this man dare to talk to him like that? When Nicky died by Joe's sword his life had only started, when Booker died, hanged on this fucking tree by his comrades, his life had ended, and there is no way Nicky can ever understand any of that.

“Fuck you,” Booker growls and leaves the kitchen for his bedroom. He stays there to sulk for two days and then creeps back into their shared space just to get black-out drunk right under Nicky's nose. Objectively, he's aware that he indeed does drink too much, and when Nicky stops being angry and simply looks _disappointed_ Booker gives in.

It's ridiculous, really, he'd rather go back to Russia in the midst of winter than to ever see this look on Nicky's face again. “Fine,” he growls, already throwing out his stash, “But it won't be pretty.”

And it isn't. He shakes, and vomits, and is in a weird stage between being awake and being asleep, which makes it hard to distinguish dreams from reality. It's not his first withdrawal, but the first one he doesn't have to go through alone. For the first day or two Nicky doesn't leave his side, and when he's too exhausted Joe takes his place, and then Andy, and then Nicky again.

They hold him, force water down his throat and wipe the vomit from his lips. He has never hated them more, but he never loved them more, either.

After nearly a week he isn't able to endure it any longer, thus in the middle of the night when everyone's asleep he gets up, takes his gun and blows his brains out. It doesn't help with the desire to drink that seems to consume every thought, but at least his body stops craving it. He remembers learning this a few decades ago and being as reassured by it as horrified.

When he comes back Andy is standing in front of him, eyes practically sparkling with fury, and for a moment he wonders what has happened in the meantime to rile her up that much.

“Never again,” she hisses.

There is the mad desire to laugh, but even his still not quite healed brain realizes it isn't a wise idea. “It's not like it will-”

“I said, Never. Again.”

Her hands claws into his blood-stained shirt and he nods.

-

Booker enjoys those few hours Quynh is asleep every night, or day for that matter, the most. It's not that she's bad company, far from it, but there is something in her face when she sleeps that draws him in.

Maybe it's because he only ever saw her screaming, and crying, and _dead,_ that it's this unusual peace in her features that mesmerizes him. And she deserves to be at peace, she does, probably more than any other person who wandered this earth ever did, after what she had gone through those last five-hundred years.

 _Five-hundred years_. He still isn't able to grasp how she stayed sane, how she's still able to function, when it took only a few hundred deaths for his most corrupt sides to come to the surface.

“I dreamed of you,” she said when he once asked her about it, “I lost track of time, I could have been there a day or a millennia, there was no way to tell, and with every last beat of my heart I was certain that everything had finally come to an end. I _prayed_ for it even. And then I saw your face, saw you dying, and living, and I knew that there was hope. I waited for death so I could hopefully see you once more.”

He wants to believe her, still doesn't because if she truly saw him, saw what he _did_ , there is no way in hell she'd stay with him, that she didn't kill him over and over again for it.

Thus, maybe Booker only likes the hours she sleeps above anything since it's the only time he doesn't have to be afraid that she sees the guilt in his eyes.

-

Booker went to war which means that he's perfectly aware of the cruelty humankind is capable of. He saw rape, and torture, and murder, and people who liked to inflict pain on others. Of course he himself killed, countless of times actually, but always out of necessity, never for pleasure. And while he seemingly has seen everything by now he simply can't get used to it, his dreams not only haunted by the feeling of drowning, but by the sight of mutilated children, burned bodies, and beat down animals as well. 

“They don't deserve this,” he mumbles when they get back to their safe house, still covered in blood and bones and guts, “They don't deserve our help.”

“You need to get out of this clothing,” Nicky says as if he didn't hear what Booker had just said.

They burn everything in a pile in their backyard and take turns bathing. He hates it, hates to see his skin clean, and without any scars, and not aged a day. When he's done Nicky finished cooking dinner as well and they sit down together, silent like they always are after a mission like that. For the next few weeks he'll dream of those children, will hear their screams again and again, and see his own sons, dead for so many years now.

“Why are we doing this? Why are we going from place to place to save people who'll die anyway? What is the point?” he asks, refusing to look any of them in the eye.

“Because the alternative is to sit by and watch,” Andy says, “And that is even more unbearable. Believe me, I've tried.”

“We save them and then what? There comes another who enslaves them, kills them. It doesn't make a difference, none of what we're doing makes a fucking difference. And one day soon they'll find a way to wipe themselves out completely and we'll be the only people left walking this hell.” He doesn't know why he says it, what about today made him talk when he usually keeps his mouth shut.

“Book-” Nicky says, but he's already getting up, taking a bottle of whatever liquor they have with him outside.

It's a beautiful night, warm and starlit, and he wants to stay in this moment forever. He wants to be anywhere but here. After he finished the bottle and puked half of it out again, he staggers back into the house, expecting everyone to be asleep. Instead they're still sitting at the table as if no time has passed at all since he left.

It's Joe who comes for him, who takes his hand and leads him into his and Nicky's bed. Booker wants to protest, but he feels too drunk to speak. Joe wraps his arms around him and suddenly Nicky and Andy are there as well, and Booker doesn't know where he ends and they begin any longer.

“I love you,” Joe whispers into his ear, “We love you.”

Booker falls asleep crying.

-

Quynh is great at telling stories. It shouldn't come as a surprise since for the better part of her life there weren't even books to pass the time with. Once in a while he has to leave the house in order to get them food and drinks, and she refuses to go with him. She actually hasn't left the flat since she first came here, and sometimes he thinks it should concern him, but in the end he is too selfish, too afraid it'll send her away.

Whenever he comes back from those short trips she has a new story for him and they nearly feel like an reward. They spend the rest of these days on the couch, Booker's head in her lab, and Quynh's fingers in his hair. Her voice is still honey-sweet in his ears, and he never feels as at ease as during those hours.

She tells him about the stars she has seen, fallen civilizations and what they've build. She talks about strange animals, and beautiful places, and about love and war. However, she never talks about the people they both shared their immortal lives with. He wonders if she's doing it for her his sake or her own.

“You wouldn't have fared well in this century, Booker,” she finishes one of her stories with a laugh.

“I haven't fared well in any century I lived in,” he counters.

-

Even though he would never say so out-loud, Joe is his favourite. It's not that he doesn't love Andy and Nicky, he'll probably never love anyone as deeply as those three people who saved him in as many ways as they've destroyed him, but there is something about Joe that draws him in. The most obvious reason is Joe's seemingly never-ending kindness that hardly anyone is deserving of, and most certainly not Booker. However, Joe is also the only person who likes to sit down with Booker and argue about anything and nothing at all, just for the sake of passing the time without ever getting tired of it. It doesn't mean they're not sitting side by side in silence once in a while, enjoying something as unspectacular as a particular old tree. “Oh, look, it's even older than you! Unbelievable!” Joe will tease as if he wasn't fighting in the crusades.

Unfortunately, Booker has always been great at picking up fights, especially with the people he loves the most, and Joe is no exception to it.

“Don't,” he growls, “You know it's pointless. The only reason you've agreed is because you're afraid Nicky won't suck your dick for a week.”

“Don't you dare to talk about him like that ever again.” After a century you know which buttons to push. Of course,the same thing can be said about Joe, “You pathetic, bitter man, you're scared shitless that no one will ever even _touch_ you when I'll leave you.”

It goes back and forth like that for a while until Booker isn't even sure in which language they're cursing the day the other was born. Most of the time it ends with one of them realizing how ridiculous the fight is, and then they begin to laugh and force the other into a hug that makes it really fucking hard to stay mad. Today is not one of those days, though.

Booker throws the first punch like he usually does, and Joe smiles satisfied. The fucker is able to hold back until Booker makes the first move nearly every time, and it makes him only that much more furious.

It's messy and ugly, neither is fighting to win but to _hurt_ , and Andy and Nicky gave up on breaking them apart decades ago, they usually snap out of it after a few minutes anyway.

Joe's face is bloody when it's over and Booker anxiously looks for any sign of permanent damage. “I'm good,” Joe says irritated as if he isn't checking Booker's skin as well.

“I'm sorry,” he whispers into Joe's neck when he thankfully didn't find even a cut. He hates being like this, so weak that he not only tries to break himself but the people he loves most all the same. Every time they fight like this he regrets it deeply for a year or two, swears to himself that he will be better, however he never gets through with it. He never goes through with anything.

“Don't be,” Joe's hands are in his hair, on his back, pulling him in and holding him close, “I needed it, I wanted it. I used you and I'm sorry.”

Joe's has always been too forgiving, too harsh with himself. Sometimes, Booker hates him for it. He kisses all the places he can reach from this position, kneeling on the floor in Joe's warm embrace. There is blood on his tongue and tears on his lips. “You don't deserve this. I do nothing but hurt you, over and over.” He would love to blame it on the alcohol, but he had less than usual. Maybe that's the problem, he's never angry when he's drunk, he hardly feels anything then.

The grip on his body loosens, only for one of Joe's hands to cup his face and make him look up. “Nothing you'll do could ever hurt me,” Joe says.

 _Liar_ , Booker thinks. He wants to beg him to stay, to not leave him, not again, never again. He wants to tell him how much he loves him, and Nicky, and Andy, but he keeps his mouth shut like he always does.

-

“I want to take a bath,” Quynh tells him one cold night in winter. She hasn't stopped shaking for hours, no matter how many blankest Booker had wrapped around her. The look on her face is determined so he nods, even though his first instinct is to argue.

Ever since she came to him she refused to even hold her hand under a running faucet, instead she scrubs her skin down with wash-cloths, sometimes so violently that she starts to bleed. Not that it sticks for too long.

She sits down in the tub and Booker turns on the water. She flinches upon the first contact, shaking worse than ever and he's about to turn it off again when she catches his hand mid motion in a death-grip. “Don't you dare,” she growls, and for the first time he truly sees the feared warrior he was told about. Unwillingly he smiles.

When the water reaches her navel she begins to cry, silent tears that spill over even though she keeps biting her lips to hold them back.

“I'm here, I'm with you,” he says, and kisses the tears away while keeping his hands firmly on her shoulders in a weak attempt to ground her.

She turns the water off herself when it's nearly about to spill over the brim. Still crying, but shaking less than in hours, she draws him closer, is now the one who kisses him.

He needs to tell her, he realizes.

-

While most people are still uncomfortable with homosexuality it isn't illegal any more, at least in wide parts of the worlds, and Nicky and Joe _relish_ it. They never seem to let got of the other's hand these days, steal kisses whenever they're able to and look very much like a newly-wed couple. Booker tells them they're embarrassing at least once a week, but it only makes them even more affectionate.

They're on a _vacation_ which consists of being forced to lie at the beach all day and eat strange, local dishes every night. Even here Nicky and Joe have absolutely no sense of shame as they're sitting on their shared towel a few meters from him and Andy, legs tangled and holding hands. Booker tries to tell himself he's merely concerned for their safety since it's never a good idea to draw too much attention to them and those two are doing nothing but for two weeks now. However, he can't deny there is another reason for the anger that spreads in his chest.

“Let them,” Andy says, and for a moment he wonders if he blurred any of those thought out, but she merely seems to sense what he's thinking. She always had this ability to see right through him, and it makes him weirdly uneasy most days.

“It's a stupid risk,” he mutters.

“They had to hide for the last two decades, and the centuries before weren't easy either.”

“Yes, they truly had a much harder life than the rest of us.”

She flinches, hardly noticeable, but it's still a stronger reaction than she normally shows. Immediately, he regrets saying anything. After a few seconds of silence she gets up and he is certain that she'll just leave, but than she sits down next to him, takes his face between her hands. “Don't let your pain get in the way of loving them.”

He shakes his head because isn't that all he ever does since he met them, trying to ignore the pain?

With a small smile she places a kiss on his lips, and for a second it feels like she means it. Not for the first time he wonders why they could never have what Joe and Nicky share so effortlessly, if he would be able to love Andy completely hadn't her heart been buried deep down in the ocean centuries ago.

-

They are lying in bed again and everything smells like lavender because Quynh made him wash every sheet, blanket, and cushion she found, still exalted about how easy it is in this century. Booker opened a bottle of red wine and she already gave him confused side-way glances since he usually settles for stronger options. However, he needs a relatively clear head for this, and when he has finished the third glass he scoots closer to her and finds her with a wary look on her face.

“They've never stopped searching for you,” he whispers and takes her hand between his, “We sometimes didn't see Andy for years, she moved heaven and hell _._ And Nicky and Joe, too. Now and then they've accompanied her, other times they went on their own and didn't tell her about it so that she wouldn't get her hopes up. They never stopped, neither hoping nor searching.”

She nods and reminds him, “We dreamed of each other. Sometimes, I saw them with you.”

It makes it only worse, this trusting look in her eyes, the forgiving smile on her lips as if she knows what he's about to say, “I told them to stop, _tried_ to make them stop. I said it was pointless. I felt your pain and didn't even care, I refused to help them looking for you.”

“You did care, Booker,” she whispers, the hand he doesn't hold in his own is suddenly in his hair, stroking, “You cared about me. And you cared about _them_ , your family. You wanted to protect them like Nicolo and Yusuf wanted to protect Andromache. You were right, weren't you? They couldn't find me. I only got free when the last hinge finally broke.”

He shakes his head, feels a tear run down his nose and then another, “I betrayed them. I never did anything but fail them, and when I got the chance I sold them out. He said he could get me what I wanted, and I wanted to believe him, I _did_ believe him. When he told it was all of us or none, I didn't even bet an eye. I gave them to him so that he could experiment on them, _torture_ them, and I didn't care.”

For a moment everything is silent and Booker closes his eyes, doesn't dare to look at Quynh and see the same pain, the same disappointment, in her face he saw in Joe's, and Nicky's, and Andy's, and Nile's.

“That is why they cast you out?” she asks, her voice not giving away any emotion. When he merely nods he feels her lips on his forehead, lingering there for longer than they usually do. “I've thought so,” Then, after a few seconds, “Sleep now, my Sebastian, you're exhausted.”

And so he does.

-

He wakes with the feeling of water in his lungs and silent screams echoing in his ears. He gasps involuntarily as if he didn't dream of her for nearly two centuries now.

“Nightmare?” Nicky whispers and Booker flinches, he has nearly forgotten how close their beds are pushed together in this small room.

Rolling to his side he looks into Nicky's worried face. “Just a dream,” Booker says and doesn't know why he's still lying, it's not that any of it will matter in a few days.

Nicky looks visibly relieved, still he reaches for Booker, “Come here.”

“No,” he shakes his head, a sick feeling spreading in his stomach.

“Come here or I'll come to you. Then Joe'll wake up and you know how he can be,” Nicky smiles and after another moment of hesitation Booker takes the offered hand and slips out of his bed and into Nicky's and Joe's.

“We should have just pushed them together,” Nicky mumbles and snuggles himself into Booker's arms, “I missed this, missed you.”

“Yeah,” Booker agrees breathlessly and puts one hand tentatively onto Nicky's back. For a moment he wants to tell him everything, about Copley and Merrick and finally having found a chance to put an end to all of this. About only ever wanting to hand himself over until they found more and more excuses for him to meet with them and lure them into that trap. It had never been the plan to get any of them into all of this, but in the end he does them a favour, doesn't he? How many times did Nicky and Joe tell him how scared they're of living without the other. This is the only way to ensure it will never happen. It is.

Next to them Joe lets out a small snort and Nicky grins into Booker's chest. He realizes that he's happy, right here and now he's happier than he has been in a long time, but by the next morning all of this will be gone, and he'll be alone once more.

It's his only chance. He has to get through with it.

-

Upon waking up Quynh is gone. He was aware it would happen rather sooner than later, and he knows, _knows,_ he deserves worse, but he still feels a heaviness settle in his chest that wasn't there for months. If he only told her sooner, or not at all. Or if he could go back in time to beat some senses into himself before betraying the only people who loved him in over a century ever crossed his mind.

“You're dreaming,” Quynh whispers into his ear, misreading the sounds he's making. She slips back under the blanket and takes him into her arms.

“How are you still here?” he whispers when he's certain that he's in fact not dreaming.

“I won't leave you. We all did what we did, and you're already paying for your mistakes. It's not my place to punish you any further.” She kisses his neck and strokes his hair again. “It's alright,” she mumbles and he only then realizes that he began to cry.

“I don't...” It gets lost in a hiccup and he isn't sure what he wanted to say. Don't deserve you? Your kindness? Your absolution? I'm afraid I'll make the same decisions again if you ever leave me because one-hundred years are _too much,_ I can't, _I can't._ “Why did you come to me?” he settles for, “Why didn't you leave immediately, why not last night? Why didn't you try to reach out to them?”

“Because you need me more than they ever did, because _I_ need _you_. I love you, Booker, I loved you ever since I dreamed of you the first time, just like we all love each other from this moment on. Don't you ever forget that.”

-

“We wanted you in our lives from the moment we dreamed of you,” Joe says, sounding unbelievably tired. “I spent the last centuries loving you, and you never let me. You pushed all of us away again and again and now you say it's our fault?”

Booker shakes his head. He feels helpless, Joe's anger is predictable, he knows how to fuel and how to smother it, but there is no anger in Joe's eyes, only pain and disappointment. It reminds Booker of all the times he had disappointed Nicky, Nicky who refuses to even look at him now, but never Joe. He seemed to be incapable of having such feelings, maybe because he had realized that there was nothing good to be expected from a man like Booker right away. “I should have never come to you,” he settles for, muttering as if he was talking to himself, “I should have just stayed away.”

Joe's laughs then, an ugly, little laugh, “No, that's the fucking problem. You were never with us to begin with, not truly. You've always held back, pitying yourself instead of taking what we tried to give you.” There are tears in Joe's eyes and Booker doesn't remember the last time he saw him cry. He withstands the need to fall to his knees and beg for forgiveness. He doesn't deserve it.

“I loved you from the beginning, I still do.” It's as bad as an apology can be, but Booker needs to say it, even if it comes centuries too late.

“I don't think I can believe you.”

-

With the first days of summer Quynh leaves the house again. It's only for short periods of time and she clearly hates every second of it, but Booker is proud anyway. He doesn't know what she did in those few weeks between getting free and coming to him, he never asked, but he can merely imagine how this fast and loud world must have terrified her.

Months later they're sitting on a bench in one of the parks, cups of steaming latte macchiatos in their hands that Quynh is weirdly obsessed with. “I think it's time,” she says all of the sudden.

“For what?”

“To finally go home. We need them.”

He knew this day would come, still he feels his throat tighten. “I have ninety-eight years left,” he reminds her. There is the urge to beg her to stay, but he resists it.

“They can be quite dramatic sometimes. However, they forgive as easily as they tend to get angry. And I know that they're missing you.”

“I doesn't change what has happened.”

“No, it doesn't, and even hundred years of exile won't. Have a little faith, Booker.”

She takes his hands into hers, holds them tight, and he wishes she would never let go. He isn't ready, he realizes, he can't bear to face them again and see the pain in their eyes, the rejection.

“Remember what I've promised you when we met.”

“We're not alone any more,” he echoes.

She smiles at him and he might even believe her.

**Author's Note:**

> It was supposed to end with all of them meeting again, but I when I've written all of this I somehow wasn't certain anymore how it would go down.  
> Come and scream with me on [tumblr](https://staubfinger.tumblr.com) about this movie and those characters haha.


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